DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

(mae ig) wards, the Queen, being apprised that her consort was in a tranquil mood, paid a visit to his apartment. She found him seated at the harpsichord, singing to his own accompaniment. Reason had only tem- porarily reasserted her sway . With an agonised sense of his condition, the King fell on his knees, fervently and touchingly prayed for his wife, his children, and his people, and besought the Almighty either to deliver him from his awful affliction or to grant him sufficient strength to submit with resignation to the Divine will. Bursting into tears, he then relapsed again into his former be- nighted state. In the following year failure of hearing was added to his other calamities, and thus bowed down by years, afflicted with deafness, with the loss of sight and of reason, it would be difficult to conceive a more painful spectacle than that of the King of England in his dreary solitude. Dressed in a loose gown of violet-coloured velvet, the Star of the Garter on his breast, with his long, flowing hair and beard of silvery white, he paced his spacious apartment in Windsor Castle, sometimes stopping to accompany himself on the harpsichord, or holding conversation with the visionary forms of friends and Ministers long dead, with whom he dwelt on the episodes of his reign, mingling humorous anecdotes with sketches of remarkable characters.